I watch movies and then talk about them!

This weekend, I took the long hike out to Kendall Square Cinemas to catch a matinée performance of THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD, a movie whose title is almost as long as the movie itself.

That's an exaggeration, because this movie is pretty damn long. It clocks in at 160 minutes, according to Movies.com, and has the kind of turtle-esque pace one doesn't see to much in movies these days. If you already think you can't sit through two and a half hour of slow paced midwestern ambiguity, then you might not want to bother. But if that doesn't completely scare you off, then read on.

I couldn't figure out before, during, or after, why exactly I left this movie feeling so entranced. I knew that I was once again surprised and impressed by Brad Pitt's acting. As an actor, the guy gets a lot of gruff because he is very, very pretty and for a very, very long time in the 90s tended to play roles that relied a bit to heavy on that prettiness. And even now, it's not as though he's Christian Bale. But Brad Pitt is a freaking movie star for a reason, and he very rarely turns in a bad performance. And occasionally, like in Jesse James or Fight Club or 12 Monkeys, he turns in the type of performance that only Brad Pitt can turn in. Playing off of Pitt's legendary status in Hollywood to create an obvious and immediate aura around Jesse James, the movie really allows Pitt to wallow in all the strange minutiae of this falling idol.

However, the movie doesn't really belong to Jesse James. To hint at this, the director consistently blurs the focus on James, as though reflecting how little is truly known about this man-god. The movie belongs to the second half of that title, the coward Robert Ford, played by Casey Affleck. I have a well documented soft spot for the Affleck brothers, but I'm hardly the only person out there right now calling younger-brother Casey a revelation in this. Robert Ford is in large part an enigma, a boy who loves to disturbing degree Jesse James, and yet who would, in an act of cowardice/mercy/desperation shoot his idol in the back of the head. And Affleck is required to carry this movie on the strength of his own ambiguity, desperation, and creepy smile.

The supporting characters are all good as well, although for some reason I had a really hard time buying that Sam Rockwell as Charlie Ford, Robert Ford's good-natured, mostly stupid older brother, could actually be related to Casey Affleck. Other than that Rockwell was fantastic, as per usual, and the gang of miscreants that surrounded him were all more than up to the challenge. In the very few female parts, the movie cast surprisingly well known actress. As James's wife, Mary Louise Parker was practically wordless, and most of had less than 25 minutes screentime over all, but those were a memorable twenty five minutes and I was grateful they didn't just cast a space filler here when the venerable James was struck down and we watched Parker go to bits and pieces. In the only other notable female role, Zooey Deschanel shows up within the last fifteen minutes of the film, and is only on screen for maybe a third of that. Yet once again, the choice to cast a more established actress works in their favor, making the small character take on a greater importance. Plus, Zooey Deschanel is awesome.

So I knew, walking out of the theatre, that I had been seriously impressed by the acting in the movie. But when I sat down to start thinking about why I REALLY liked this movie, it struck me that it was a whole lot of things I couldn't really put into words. I liked the way the movie felt timeless, that although it was clearly a period piece, it was often shot in ways that made it feel thoroughly modern and entrenched in today. I liked the way it toyed with the idea of morality but never really gave over to it. I loved the visuals; it reminded me of Brokeback Mountain in the way that I seriously wanted to get lost into the landscapes. But it did many things Brokeback did not, playing with light and dark and focus. And very rarely were these visuals just exercises in camera excellence; they all fit in perfectly with the mood and themes of the tale.

I even liked that very slow pacing and the way the movie took its own twists and turns and followed its own fancy. I like that one could debate the ending and the aptness of the title. And I love that this is a movie that is clearly Oscar bait, but that doesn't feel the need to slam its message down your throat (in this I also compare it to Brokeback Mountain, which was, after all, just a love story).

Overall, this was a beautiful movie, sad and thoughtful, and incredibly interesting.